Kathryn Spann and Dave Krabbe are the owners of 97-acre Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) Prodigal farm in Rougemont, North Carolina, where they raise goats for meat and cheese. Like Dan and Susan Gibson of Grazin’ Diner and Grazin’ Angus Acres (profiled on page 5), Kathryn and Dave traded fast-track lives centered around New York City for life and labor on the farm.

In August, Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly stated that—to alleviate what he claimed was a horse overpopulation problem—the government of the Navajo Nation would support rounding up, selling, and slaughtering wild horses from Navajo lands, as well as the planned opening of a horse slaughterhouse in Roswell, New Mexico.

On the first day of summer 2013, agriculture officials confirmed that 50,000 bees—likely representing more than 300 colonies—discovered dead in a shopping mall parking lot in Wilsonville, Oregon, were done in by a neonicotinoid pesticide sprayed on nearby trees.

A new law in California will phase out the use of lead ammunition for hunting throughout the state. The law, introduced as Assembly Bill 711 in March 2013 by Assembly Member Anthony Rendon, passed both the Assembly and the Senate and was signed by the governor on October 11.

In the summer of 2008, due to a family medical emergency, Tom Siesto and Liz Raab left their beloved Rottweiler, Nitro, at the Youngstown, Ohio, kennel of well-regarded trainer, Steve Croley, who was offering a “dog summer camp.”

Both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have passed versions of the 2013 Farm Bill, and the two chambers of Congress must now reconcile their respective bills and agree upon the provisions that will become law.

AWI was honored to be with Willie Nelson and his family at the Hard Rock Café in New York City in June for a celebration of his 80th birthday, and to recognize his legacy and his commitment to activism on behalf of horses.

According to author T. DeLene Beeland, many devoted wildlife lovers are completely unaware that there is a separate species of wolf in North America called the red wolf (Canis rufus); even fewer know that the red wolf likely evolved solely in North America, unlike its more famous cousin, the gray wolf (Canis lupus).

A new report by AWI, Project Coyote, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) entitled Indiana Coyote ­“Penning”: An Inside Look at Animal Abuse and Cruelty details the results of an investigation of an Indiana penning facility, uncovering extreme animal suffering and providing strong evidence that wild coyotes are being illegally confined and killed by hunting dogs.